CHAPTER 22
THEN our good Lord Jesus Christ said: ‘Are you pleased that I suffered for you?’ I said: ‘Yes, good Lord, I thank you; and yes good Lord, may you be blessed.’ Then Jesus, our kind Lord said: ‘If you are pleased, I am pleased; it is a joy, a bliss and endlessly satisfying to me that I suffered a passion for you; and if I could suffer more, I would suffer more.’
In this feeling my understanding was lifted up into heaven, and there I saw three heavens, the sight of which made me marvel. And though I see three heavens, and all in the blessed manhood of Christ, there is not one that is greater, not one that is less, not one higher and not one lower, but they are all equal in bliss.
In the first heaven, Christ showed me his father; not in bodily likeness, but in his nature and in his working. That is to say, I saw in Christ that his Father is. The working of the Father is this: that he gives a gift to his Son Jesus Christ. This gift is so wonderful a reward to Jesus that his Father could not have given him anything that pleased him better. The first heaven that is the pleasing to the Father was shown to me as one heaven, and it was pure bliss, for he is most pleased with all the deeds that Jesus has done for our salvation. It is not only by his buying, but also by the courteous gift of his Father, that we are his bliss, his prize, his honour and his crown. (And this was a particular marvel and a most beautiful beholding, that yes, we are his crown!) This that I say is so great bliss to Jesus that he counts his labour as nothing, and so also his hard passion and his cruel and shameful death.
And in these words - ‘If I could suffer more, I would suffer more,’ - I saw in truth that as often as he could die, he would die, and that love would never let him rest until he had done it. And I watched with great diligence in order to learn how often he would die if he could. And truly the number passed both my understanding and my wits, so that I quite gave up counting. And when he had died all these times, or would have, yet in his love, it was all considered as nothing; for it all seemed to him so small compared to his love.
For though the sweet manhood of Christ could only suffer once, the goodness in him never ceases to offer itself; every day he is ready to do the same, if it will help. For if he said that for love of me he would make new heavens and a new earth, it were but little in comparison; for this could be done every day if he so desired, without any travail. But to die for love of me, and so often that the number passes human reason, this is the highest offer that our Lord God could make to a human soul, in my view. This is what he then means: ‘How can there be anything that I will not do for love of you? I could certainly perform deeds which do not grieve me, since I would, for your love, die over and over again with no regard for my harsh pains.’
And here I saw, in the second beholding of this blessed passion, the love that made him suffer is as far above his pains as heaven is above the earth. For the pain was a noble and honourable deed, achieved in time by the work of love. Yet love was without beginning, is now and shall be without ending. And of this love he spoke these most sweet words: ‘If I could suffer more, I would suffer more.’ He did not say ‘If it was necessary to suffer more’ - for though it was not necessary, if he could suffer more, he would.
This deed, and this work for salvation, was ordained as well as God could ordain it. And here I saw a complete bliss in Christ; for his bliss could not have been complete if it could have been done any better.
CHAPTER 23
I was shown three heavens in the words he spoke: ‘It is a joy, a bliss and an endless liking.’ For the joy, I understood the pleasure of the Father; for the bliss, the honouring of the Son; and for the endless liking, the Holy Spirit.’ The Father is pleased, the Son is honoured and the Holy Spirit host is satisfied.
And now I saw the third beholding of his blissful passion; that is to say, the joy and the bliss that make him to be well-satisfied in it. Our courteous Lord showed his passion to me in five ways. The first is the bleeding of the head; the second is the discolouring of his face; the third is the profuse bleeding of the body, apparently from the scourging; the fourth is the deep dying. These four were shown as the pains of the passion. And the fifth is what was shown to me in the joy and the bliss of his passion.
For it is God’s will that we share with him true enjoyment of our salvation, and so he wills that we are deeply comforted and strengthened. He wills that by his grace our soul may be occupied most merrily. For we are his bliss: and in us he finds endless enjoyment; and so shall we in him, with his grace.
And all that he has done for us, and still does, and ever will do, is neither cost nor charge to him, nor could it be, except that which he did in our humanity, beginning with the sweet incarnation and lasting until the blessed uprising on Easter morning. This was the true cost and charge of the working of our redemption, and yet in this work he finds endless joy, as I have previously said.
Jesus wills that we pay attention to the bliss that is in the blessed Trinity at our salvation and that we should desire to have as much spiritual enjoyment, with his grace, as I have said. What I mean is that our enjoyment of salvation should be the same as the joy that Christ has over our salvation, as far as is possible on earth.
All the Trinity worked together in the passion of Christ, giving to us an abundance of virtues and quantities of grace through him. While it was only Mary’s son who suffered, yet all the blessed Trinity celebrate it without end. All this was revealed in these words: ‘Are you well pleased?’ And by that other word that Christ said: ‘If you are pleased, then am I pleased.’ It is as if he said: ‘That joy and satisfaction is enough for me, and I ask for nothing else from you for my labour, but that I might please you well.’
And in this he reminded me of the nature of a glad giver. A glad giver pays little attention to the thing that he gives, for his desire and intent is to please and bring comfort to the one to whom he gives. And if the receiver takes the gift gladly and thankfully, then the courteous giver forgets all about the cost and their labour, for the joy and delight that they have pleased and comforted the one they love. Clearly and repeatedly was this shown.
Think also wisely of the greatness of this word ‘ever’, for it contains within it a deep knowing of the love that has brought our salvation and the many joys that follow the passion of Christ. One is that he rejoices that he has done what he has done and shall suffer no more; another, that he bought us from the endless pains of hell.